


Kitschmas Karol

by Sally M (sallymn)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Post Gauda Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 09:31:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallymn/pseuds/Sally%20M





	Kitschmas Karol

**Kitschmas Karol**

****

Blake was dead, to begin with.

****

Everyone knew that.

****

 

****

Three years after the three shots that made a legend - and toppled what was left of an empire - a messenger came to the small, deserted, outwardly forlorn world of Diknsiya. He sighed - even if he stayed just one night, it would take him five days to reach Earth. Just too late for Kitschmas, the garish and trashy and exuberant old Delta festival that the new Presidential Council had happily reinstated. He would far rather have been at home than in space, or on this cold white world littered with old, dark buildings...

****

The man he had come to see did not appear grateful. He waited near the old, worn landing pad, a nondescript figure, straight and oh so still, wrapped in a heavy black leather cloak.

****

"Skruj?"

****

"Who wishes to know?" The man spoke softly, with a harsh, snarling thread of pain behind his Alpha-smooth tones; his cold brown eyes held no welcome, no hint of friendliness, none of the softening and cheer that the season evoked at home. On the other hand... he had let Cratch land.

****

"I have something for you. A gift."

****

It was not a large parcel, and odd-shaped and rather lumpy under its rough wrappings. What was in it, he didn't know or care; the wealthy Delta who had paid him to do this holiday run - a small, balding, cheery man, a comrade of the new President - had chosen him for his discretion, and then chosen not to explain. Typical of the newly rich in the Inner Worlds, of course, but if it paid well Cratch could not complain.

****

"And a message." He pulled out a ragged strip of script, meant to remind himself of the obscure words, "it's from the... Ghost of Friendships Past." He saw the man Skruj stiffen, his thin brows draw together ominously, his harsh-cut lips tighten.

****

From the corner of an eye, he saw the flash of overbright colour dart towards him, and jumped back with a squark. Small, round - the massive size and ungainly shape of a warg-strangler's fist - it looked for all the world like a huge insect, striped with red, white and green as bright as festive sweets.

****

"Local wildlife," Skruj said with faint, dismissive amusement, "known as humbugs."

****

"Dangerous?" Cratch had to ask - like most Dome-dwellers past and present, he saw bugs and crawlers as vermin, however bright and shiny they might be.

****

"Not really." The man put out a hand, and the thing leapt up and curled its thin, tinsel-bright legs around his arm. "Quite the reverse, actually. They are tame, and what most people might call good eating: sugary-sweet, almost sickly." He glanced down at it. "I lost my taste for humbug some years ago."

****

"Oh, I -"

****

"Three, to be exact." He shrugged, less than gracefully, as if an old wound gave him pain. "But you may like to take one, I believe that the new President has taken to them as pets, and they may become - fashionable - among your new rulers." He held out his hand for the script.

****

Cratch hesitated, glancing suspiciously at the man and at his... pet.

****

"Come," Skruj's voice regained the harsh tone. "You said it was for me, I'll see what the fool has to say." When Cratch didn't move, he stepped forward and tugged the paper from the messenger's suddenly nerveless fingers. When Cratch would have snatched it back, the bug reared up a little and glared at him with sparkly, evil eyes, and he fell back, flustered, slightly annoyed. He had to admit, the message had made him curious with its enigmatic words about chains, old memories, and heavy secrets locked and tight.

****

Skruj glanced at the words, his mouth curling in a smile without amusement. "Same as always..." He murmured, but seemed to pause at the final words. Cratch knew those words by heart - odd, conventional Kitschmas greetings, but with a faintly rueful overtone he didn't understand, and at the very last, a mention of the other anniversary.

****

Today. Blake's Day.

****

The mention had seemed... offhand, flippant; to Cratch, it even suggested that neither Skruj nor the Ghost - the Delta who paid for this - took it gravely. Cratch didn't much care for that, but it wasn't his place to complain. In any case, he could see the flash of pain in the man's eyes, not much when a galaxy mourned but somehow more... private? More personal?

****

Perhaps Skruj had been a rebel once.

****

After a minute, the man shook his head as if to clear an old, cold memory and held out his hand for the parcel.

****

"I assume," he said, with a return to the Alpha-snarl of before, "that you do not wish to stay - fortunate, as Diknsiya is not a place for much celebration."

****

Cratch blinked; he had intended to refuse any invitation, but was a little startled to receive such a blanket rejection, at this of all times. On the other hand, this bleak, dark, old-fashioned, almost slum-like old base was not somewhere he wanted to be at this time of year.

****

Especially not with humbugs around.

****

"Tell your employer..." Skruj paused, then laughed. "No. Tell him nothing."

****

"Not even season's greetings?" Cratch blurted out.

****

"He hardly needs those from us... from me."

****

Cratch shrugged, glancing down at the humbug who blinked brilliantly at him, as if in agreement. Obviously the 'us' referred to this solitary man and his sugar-sweet... pets. With a shrug, he turned back to his ship, and to the long trip home.

****

Maybe he would make it home for Kitschmas.

****

 

****

The parcel was... innocuous. His former associates, along with President Avalon, had wrapped masses of cheap and cheery Kitschmas trappings around the painted plasteel toy humbug that housed the real message, and the gift of the usual million credits with which to buy whatever they wanted for another year.

****

He waited until he was inside what had been Aristo base, what a Delta thief-turned-law-enforcement-magnate had renamed for that old Deltan Kitschmas tale, what was now a home for two ex-rebels who were more than happy to remain ghosts. He had dimmed the lights, turned up the holographic fireplace, and sat before the warm, dancing rainbowed flames before opening the present from the crew.

****

Cratch could never had imagined the luxury that lay beneath the grim, dismal trappings, the ease and comfort that the same people who now ruled a fragmented but oddly contented galaxy had provided for the man whose death had helped lead to that end... and who therefore had agreed, even as he fought his way back to life, to stay dead.

****

It had not been a hard thing to volunteer to share Blake's death, as he remembered. In fact, it had proved far easier - and more comfortable - than he could ever have imagined on the Liberator or Xenon. He thought he might take a trip, visit what was left of Freedom City... gloat a little... but he liked it here.

****

He paused, then smiled - a real smile, one Cratch could not have imagined on his cold face. Tucked inside the humbug, along with the credit voucher, was a tiny bottle of soma and adrenaline, a gift from the Ghost of Friendships... not quite Past.

****

Kitchmas cheer.

**

  
**\- the end -**   


**


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